Mark Burnett Biography

July 17, 1960
•
London, England

Television producer

Burnett, Mark.

Jim Spellman/WireImage.com.

In May 2000, when Americans first heard the phrase "the tribe has
spoken," television as we knew it changed forever. The speaker was
host Jeff Probst; the television show was
Survivor
; the show's creator was British-born producer Mark Burnett.
Survivor
was a game show like no other before it. With sixteen castaways battling
to win a million-dollar prize on a deserted island, it was part athletic
competition and part soap opera. Millions tuned in to watch the
contestants experience conditions of deprivation, dilemma, and physical
challenge. The savvy Burnett realized that the audience watching this show
was the key to a gold mine, and he soon began work on other reality
television series. In 2003 he produced
The Restaurant,
which presented the ups and downs that go into launching a new
restaurant. In 2004 Burnett's "The Apprentice" drew
millions of viewers as contestants vied to win a corporate position with
one of America's richest businessmen. Along the way, Burnett became
one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, and everyone watched as he
earned the title, "king of reality TV."

From commando to nanny

Mark Burnett came from a humble, but very supportive family. He was born
in July 17, 1960, in London, England's East End to parents who were
factory workers. His father worked in a Ford Motor Company plant; his
mother worked in the battery compound next door. Although the Burnetts
could not afford to give their only child a lot of material things, they
did give him plenty of encouragement. Burnett's mother, in
particular, served as an early role model. As Burnett recalled in his
autobiography
Dare to Succeed,
"She always dressed immaculately, never letting her station in
life interfere with how she presented herself." She passed that
sense of pride on to her son, and always explained to him that he could
achieve anything in life he wanted. She was also her son's biggest
champion. Burnett explained in his autobiography, "Basically, she
supported every crazy thing I had ever done my whole life."

When he was seventeen years old, Burnett joined the British Army. In a
short time, he became a section commander of the prestigious Parachute
Regiment. Burnett saw active duty in Northern Ireland and the Falkland
Islands, and left the army in 1982 a decorated soldier. Although he
observed the horrors of war, Burnett also had his first taste of
adventure, a taste that would stay with him the rest of his life.

"I heard my name associated with the Peter Pan syndrome more than
once. But, really, what's so wrong with Peter Pan? Peter Pan
flies. He is a metaphor for dreams and faith."

Not sure what to do after the service, Burnett decided to take a position
as a military adviser in Central America. He did not tell his mother the
full details, only that he was taking a "security job."
Burnett's mother told him she had an uneasy feeling about the job,
and she asked her son to reconsider accepting it. When he landed in Los
Angeles,
in 1982, on his way to Central America, Burnett thought about his
mother's warning and decided to stay put in the United States. With
$600 in his pocket, he contemplated his next move. A friend of his who was
living in Los Angeles told him about a wealthy Malibu family who was
looking for a nanny. Impressed by his cleaning and ironing abilities
(learned in the strict British Army environment), Burnett was hired.

The commando-turned-nanny worked for two different families over the
course of several years. Burnett became lifelong friends with one of his
employers (named Burt), and Burt eventually developed into the young
man's mentor. Burnett quizzed the producers and businessmen he came
into contact with through Burt, and he soaked up all the information they
could offer. Eventually, Burt hired Burnett to sell insurance. During the
late 1980s, Burnett went from selling insurance to selling T-shirts along
a fence in Venice Beach, California, to starting his own marketing and
advertising firm. By the early 1990s, the English immigrant who had come
to the United States with a few hundred dollars had earned his first
million. By all accounts, he was a success. However, Burnett felt
something was missing. That something was adventure.

Eco-Challenge

In February 1991, Burnett found his inspiration. While flipping through
the
Los Angeles Times
he happened upon an article describing a French adventure competition
called the Raid Gauloises. Each year, five-person teams from various
countries competed in an exotic location for up to two weeks. The race was
grueling as team members competed nonstop, taking on such tasks as
marathon kayaking, horseback riding (or even camel-riding, depending on
the location), and parachuting. Such physically demanding competitions
were not new to Europe, but the United States had nothing of the kind.
Burnett decided to fix that. He would create his own competition, call it
Eco-Challenge, and produce it for American television.

Burnett felt he had to prepare for Eco-Challenge. As he remarked in his
autobiography, "I took an unusual step. I would race in the
Raid-Gauloises. This would show me how my future customers actually felt
while racing, and help me become a better race producer." Burnett
pulled together Team American Pride, the first U.S. team ever to compete
in the Raid Gauloises. He and Team America competed
in the 1992 Raid in Oman, the 1993 Raid in Madagascar, and the 1994 Raid
in Borneo. By 1995 Burnett was ready to launch his own race. He formed a
management team, poured every cent he had into the idea (including taking
a loan against his house), and pitched the idea to several television
networks. On April 25, 1995, the first Eco-Challenge was held in Utah, and
broadcast on MTV. The show later migrated to the Discovery Channel and
then to the USA Network.

Billed as the "toughest race in the world," the first
competition spanned over 370 miles across the rocky terrain of southern
Utah, and included more than fifty teams. Players had to ride on horseback
for 26 miles, swim in cold water carrying backpacks, and hike more than
100 miles across the desert. Some of the players did not make it and had
to be flown by helicopter to safety. When an interviewer from
Boy's Life
asked Burnett why people would put themselves through such physical
torture, he explained, "Only by taking people to their lowest low
do they learn something about themselves."

Mark Burnett's Principles of Success

Mark Burnett is an inspiration story. From soldier to nanny; from
salesman to producer, he is a true man of vision. As Kevin Downey of
Broadcasting & Cable
put it, "Burnett has a vision that strays far from the norm.
Fortunately for him, advertisers and millions of viewers have turned
some of his dreams into hits." According to Burnett, however, the
keys to success are easy ones that everyone can follow. In his
bestselling book
Dare to Succeed: How to Survive and Thrive in the Game of Life,
he describes seven principles that have been a guide "through
the minefields dividing dreams and success."

Only results count.

Have the courage to fail.

Choose teammates wisely.

Perseverance produces character.

Be right or be wrong, but make a decision.

Set achievable goals.

Try to go above, beyond, and then further.

Players kept coming back for more, and so did audiences. Burnett produced
eight more Eco-Challenges, which took place in one exotic location after
another, including Morocco (1998), Borneo (2000), New Zealand (2002), and
Fiji (2003).
Eco-Challenge
was nominated several times for an Emmy award (the highest achievement in
television) and received many top honors, including a 1996 Sports Emmy.

Survival of the fittest

Inspired by the success of
Eco-Challenge,
Burnett geared up to produce another competition-based series. During the
course of the Eco-Challenge races, he was intrigued by how the players
interacted with each other under stress. As he told
USA Today
online, "
Eco-Challenge
proved to me that the communication within groups was much more a factor
in an expedition success than technical or physical attributes. And
that's what attracted me to
Survivor.
"

Survivor
was actually the brainchild of British producer Charlie Parsons. Burnett
purchased the rights to the idea from Parsons in 1998. As he wrote in his
autobiography, "I had a gut feeling that I could make this great
concept even greater." It took Burnett a few years to convince
networks of his gut feeling. Network after network turned down the project
until 2000, when CBS snapped it up, hoping to air it during the empty
summer months when its regular line-up was in reruns.

Six thousand people applied for the chance to be dropped off on a remote
island in order to compete for food, shelter, and the ultimate prize of
one million dollars. Only sixteen were chosen, ranging from Rudy, a
retired Navy SEAL (a highly skilled military division), to a female truck
driver named Susan. The men and women were divided into two
"tribes," and over the course of thirty-nine days they
competed in such challenges as fish-spearing, slug-eating, and running
obstacle courses. At the end of each show, the losing team of the night
met in tribal councils and voted off one of their own members.

Survivor
was an immediate and outrageous success. Viewers flocked to their sets
every Thursday night to find out who was voted off, and tuned in on Friday
mornings to watch ousted tribal members interviewed on radio and TV talk
shows. On August 23, 2000, over fifty million people tuned in to watch the
series finale. The show's winner, Richard Hatch, became an instant
celebrity; producer Mark Burnett became a multi-millionaire; and
Survivor
went down in pop culture history as the most successful reality show of
all time.

From island jungle to concrete jungle

Burnett went on to create a number of
Survivor
sequels and specials, and although none quite reached the heights of the
original, each

attracted record numbers of viewers. In December 2003, when
Survivor: Pearl Island
(the seventh installment in the series) ended, it was the second-most
watched program on network television. In May of 2004 more than
twenty-four million viewers saw Amber Brkich named the winner of the
Survivor: All Stars
competition, which set eighteen past cast members in competition against
one another.

In addition to its popularity with audiences,
Survivor
received praise from critics and was nominated for fourteen Emmy awards,
winning two. Perhaps the real mark of success was that
Survivor
spawned a number of imitators, including
Big Brother
and
Joe Millionaire.
Such shows hoped to cash in on the reality craze, but none even came
close.

Burnett was not yet finished riding the reality show wave. In 2003 he took
his cameras to Oahu, Hawaii, and introduced viewers to the world of
professional surfing in
Boarding House: North Shore.
He also gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant business while
following up-and-coming New York chef Rocco DiSpirito in
The
Restaurant.
Neither show had quite the draw of
Survivor.
In 2004, however, Burnett moved from the island jungles to the concrete
jungle in
The Apprentice.
And, once again, he hit the jackpot.

On the surface,
The Apprentice
sounded very much like
Survivor
: sixteen contestants picked to compete in a number of challenges to win a
grand prize. In this case, the contestants were men and women with
backgrounds in business, the playing field was set on the streets of New
York City, and the winner got the chance to work for Donald Trump
(1946–), a U.S. real estate whiz who is estimated to be worth
approximately $4 billion. Burnett was a longtime fan of Trump, and in 2002
he got the chance to meet his idol when he leased the skating rink in
Central Park for a
Survivor
finale. Trump owns the rink (as well as many other New York City
landmarks), and the two got to talking. They both agreed that a
competition set in New York would be perfect since, as Trump remarked to
Entertainment Weekly,
"New York City is the toughest jungle of them all."

Over the fifteen episodes, two teams (men versus women) competed to see
who was the best at selling lemonade, designing ad campaigns, and renting
high-priced apartments. At the end of each show, instead of gathering at a
tribal council, the losing team met with Trump in the
"boardroom." Just as millions tuned in to watch Jeff Probst
extinguish a tribal member's torch, millions more tuned in to watch
Trump flick his wrist, point at the losing player, and say,
"You're fired!" By the series end, the contestants
had again become celebrities, as fans rooted for the conniving Omarosa,
mild-mannered Kwame, and spastic Sam; the network and Burnett were taking
home barrels of cash; and Burnett cemented himself as the guru, the titan,
the king of reality TV. Following the success of
The Apprentice,
Trump wrote in
Time
that "Burnett is a great visionary, able to see into the future
with far better accuracy than any of his competitors. His No. 1 talent is
having the right idea at the right time.... The positive impact of his
efforts has been seen and felt by tens of millions of people."

King of unscripted drama

In interviews Burnett acknowledges that he has tapped into a new type of
television producing, but he bristles at the term "reality
TV." As he told Josh Mankiewicz of
Dateline NBC,
he prefers to call his creations,
"unscripted dramas." Regardless of what they are called,
there seems to be no end to them. In March 2004, Burnett launched a
program called
Recovery,
which follows a CIA agent who recovers abducted children. Premiering in
June 2004,
The Casino
follows two entrepreneurs who purchase the failing Golden Nugget Hotel
and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the hopes of resurrecting its glory
days. Burnett is also producing
The Contender,
along with actor-director Sylvester Stallone (1946–). The focus of
the show is a nationwide search for the next boxing superstar.

By 2004, forty million people were watching Mark Burnett–produced
shows every week on at least three major networks. He was also a
best-selling author, a motivational speaker, and he appeared on almost
every "who's who" list imaginable, from "
Entertainment Weekly's
Top 101 Most Powerful People in Entertainment" to "
TV Guide's
Most Valuable Players" list. In his spare time, Burnett was active
in a number of charities, and he remained a top-notch athlete: he is a
certified scuba diver and an advanced-level skydiver. What is
Burnett's message to adventurers out there? As he told Josh
Mankiewicz of
MSNBC,
"There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew and
chew it anyway."

For More Information

Books

Burnett, Mark.
Dare to Succeed: How to Survive and Thrive in the Game of Life.
New York: Hyperion, 2001.